Winter’s well and truly here - many frosty mornings and even once some snow. A neighbour tells us snow hasn’t settled here for 10 years. If you have brilliant eyesight, in the photo above you’ll see 2 pukekos by the lake that formed after heavy rain. Very exciting - it’s the first time we’ve seen them here.
The house keeps toasty warm as long as the fire's lit. I was almost hoping it'd be a crap fire so I could really justify that wood-stove. I'm having to work on a bit more justification, but I think I'm nearly there.
Our cows arrived safely and have settled well, inseparable now from Butch and Woody. And what’s really nice this time is that these ones are unlikely to end up in the freezer. Aphrodite* and Persephone** are 10 months old, a bit older than the steers but not that you’d know it – they’re way more petite. Billy remarked that “they must be girls because they’ve lied about their age!” They’re Galloway cows (aka Teddy Bear cows) so not Greek Goddess-like at all. Maybe they'll grow into thier names. They should be the right age for insemination at Christmas, so optimistically we’ll have Speckled Park X calves around September 2013. At least that’s the plan.
The sheep have also settled and have now been named. There’s a rugby theme to their names, even though they’re female (at least we hope so!). There’s ‘Nonu’ (Ma’a Nonu), ‘Israel’ (Dagg….think about it), ‘Tate’ (for England player Matthew Tate) and finally ‘Fitzpatrick‘ (Sean). You really didn’t want to know eh? Billy and Peter reckon they know who’s who – but I can’t tell them apart. Hope that doesn’t count as ‘sheepism’. Anyway, they’ve done a fine job of mowing the orchard – you can even see where the new fruit trees have been planted (and now staked). We’ll move them to another paddock at the weekend for a change of scenery and pasture.
Fighting between the 2 turkey toms (and excess turkey poop around the house) led to a reduction in their numbers. One male and one female were processed, leaving 3 females and a tom. Since becoming leader of his pack, this turkey tom has turned his attention and aggression to his next rival – me. Apparently it’s not unusual for turkeys to attempt to be dominant like this, but frankly it’s a pain in the arse. He displays constantly and stalks me, snapping at the back of my legs. He stamps and makes angry wheezy sounds, and tries to follow me into the house. When I open the curtains…..he’s there, like a scene from a horror movie, waiting to torment me. Sometimes it’s quite entertaining, mostly it’s infuriating and a bit of a concern that he might go for someone else. When he really gets on my nerves I find myself childishly gesticulating a cut throat and declaring: “into the pot you turkey”. To think, I used to be a vegetarian.
The chooks, on the other hand, are being delightful. 5 eggs most days thank you very much. Several of these are double-yolkers, as you often get with young birds, and there was even a triple-yolker (hope you enjoyed it Karyn!). They started to lay them in our firewood box just outside the front door. At first we tried to persuade them to return to their nest boxes in the hen house, then we realised that being able to pick up clean eggs from by the front door is a truly fantastic concept. Peter took the wood out and replaced it with hay, and we created a second ‘nest’ – a hay-lined cardboard box on the other side of the firewood box. Voila!! 
Not long now for Smoko and Supper, who now look absolutely huge. Interestingly they've begun to fight with each other, which didn't happen when there was 4 of them. They mostly come to blows over food, taking it in turns to be push the other away. We haven't cleaned out the pig house in the whole time we've had the pigs - it hasn't been necessary as it's remained squeaky clean. All we've done is added a few extra haybales, mainly for warmth. We've decided to see how long the meat from 3 pigs last us before deciding when to get more piglets. I've enjoyed them, but they are quite time-consuming in terms of feeding - I'm looking forward to a break.
There’s no real change in the wetland in the last month, except for some clearing up of willow branches and 130 native plants ordered. The council has agreed to cut down the tallest willow which could bring down the power lines if it fell the wrong way - Murray didn’t want to go ahead for that reason. It’ll take 3 months before it gets to the top of their list, but won’t stop us being able to begin planting. I’ve earmarked the 2 week July holidays to get on with planting, and am hoping to have some volunteers to help out. I’m also hoping that we’ll make some progress with clearing more of the rampant willows before planting begins. There’s been quite a lot of rainfall and the water level is the highest it’s been. Hopefully it’ll be high more often once the willows stop sucking it out.
The vege plot is also unchanged, though the green manure is growing well, and I’ve tentatively drawn out some plans for mandala beds in the new fenced-off area (and eventually to replace the existing oblong beds). It’s the first draft so very likely to change several times before I settle on something. I’ve included a pergola in the middle next to a small pond. Not a priority of course, but knowing me it’ll probably be one of the first things that goes in. After all where else am I going to sit and drink my beer/sloe gin/vanilla vodka?
TIme to sign off now and go and do something useful. Firewood stacking, fencing, sorting out willow branches, housework (yeah right) etc. It's BIlly's 12th birthday tomorrow so we're out bowling and having a sleepover tonight. One more year then they'll all be teenagers. No stop, I'm not even going there. In the meantime it's a stunning sunny winter's day, after a serious frost again this morning. Sigh.....life's sweet.
*Aphrodite: Greek Goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and procreation. She was born when Cronus cut off Uranus' genitals and threw them into the sea, and from the sea foam (aphros) arose Aphrodite. Her Roman equivalent is the goddess Venus.
**Persephone: Queen of the underworld. She's the daughter of Zeus and the harvest-goddess Demeter. Also known as Kore (maiden / vegetation goddess)
